Authors /
Benjamin M. Stewart
Benjamin M. Stewart teaches worship and is dean of the chapel at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
The risen gardener
Each of the four Gospels’ depictions of the first encounter with the resurrected Christ suggests a different lens for perceiving the risen one. In Matthew, Christ’s resurrection looks like a theophany—earthquake and blazing light—and Christ appears suddenly and vividly to disciples on the run and on the mountain. In Luke, the risen Christ is first encountered as a peripatetic teacher and finally recognized in the breaking of bread. Mark apparently included no straightforward account of the risen Christ at all.
And in the Gospel of John, Christ rises from the ground in a springtime garden.
March 25, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013: John 20:1-18
In John's Easter account, people spend the day running around trying to come to terms with what God has done in the night.
March 19, 2013
Palm/Passion and paradox
Luke describes Jesus riding heroically into Jerusalem on Palm/Passion Sunday. According to archetypal imagery, is Jesus riding to heroic victory or tragic defeat?
Luke offers hints along the way that the trajectory between Palm Sunday and Good Friday is something other than utter failure, but they’re subtle hints: Jesus claims the authority to pardon even as he himself is hanging on the executioner’s cross; as he dies, he continues to discuss his kingdom and paradise.
March 18, 2013
Palm/Passion Sunday (Luke 19:28-40, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 23:1-49)
If this Sunday's service seems crowded and discordant, there’s a historical reason for it: the lectionary readings are a combination of two different local liturgies.
March 12, 2013
Worship without walls
Public ritual might be construed as a benign relic, as imperialism, or as marketing. Or it might be seen as a form of pilgrimage.
September 24, 2012
Water in worship: The ecology of baptism
The Christian heritage of praying next to water is older than Christianity itself, being deeply influenced by our Jewish heritage. One of our stunning water-prayer treasures is Psalm 104.
January 28, 2011
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